Late in a practice this week during a goal-line stand, DeRuyter stood behind his defense, barking orders and making adjustments in his reliably upbeat manner that should be a model for coaches from junior high to the NFL. He could've been wrapping up spring drills about 440 miles north of here but passed on the opportunity to become head coach at Tulsa for a second season at A&M.

DeRuyter, 48, declined to name any schools that courted him in the offseason — including Tulsa — but offered this of what made him return to A&M as assistant head coach to Mike Sherman:

“Because of the success of what our guys did on defense, and because you're at Texas A&M, there are going to be schools that look at you. You're flattered by that, and I had some schools talk to me during the offseason. I've made no qualms about telling Coach Sherman that I would like to be a head coach one day. But it's got to be a special situation.

“There was a school that I was very interested in because I thought they had the right leadership, and it would have been a neat opportunity, but at the end of the day, it wasn't better than what I have now. There are some special things we can do here, and it's going to take a special school for me to leave this place.”

Sherman hired DeRuyter from Air Force a little more than a year ago, and DeRuyter's first A&M crew finished 55th nationally in total defense — a whopping 50-spot improvement from a year prior. More importantly, the Aggies held traditional Big 12 powers Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas to an average of 14 points, all A&M victories en route to a share of the Big 12 South title.

“Without even seeing what went wrong, he still knows,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “It's almost weird how he can decipher what goes on defensively. When I've messed up, he knows it. I've said to him, ‘You weren't even watching me,' and he's replied, ‘Yeah, but you did this.'”

Hunter grinned.

“And I had,” he added.

DeRuyter and his staff have a season under their A&M belts compared to this time last year, when he and a majority of his assistants were still trying to figure out the difference between George Bush Drive and Texas Avenue.

“The teaching process has been accelerated,” DeRuyter said. “This spring, in the first three days of practice, we put in 90 percent of our package that took us 15 days to install last year. That kind of push has really allowed us to play fast with a lot of stuff in our package.”